Britons buying greener new cars in 2008
According to a survey by Motorpoint, a UK car supermarket group, three out of five new car buyers in 2008 will be purchasing a vehicle with lower CO2 emissions than their previous car. Motorpoint reached this conclusion after checking its own order books, but they aren't the first ones to notice the trend."We've increased our online sales force by more than 10 percent in order to cope with the increase in customer inquiries and orders. And many of those inquiries involve giving advice about CO2 emissions levels," said Motorpoint operations director Paul Winfield. "But let's not lose sight of the fact that, though the Government wants to get people out of high-emissions vehicles by making them more expensive while also cutting the cost of driving the more environmentally-friendly alternatives, our survey also shows forty per cent of the country's 33 million drivers are still ready to pay the price for driving the car of their choice however polluting it may be," he added.
I hope he didn't mean that we should have the right to pollute as much as we want; it's no secret he was talking about the new Congestion Tax rules.Related:
- Porsche polls Londoners on congestion charge, pretty much calls mayor a liar
- Mayor of London bashed for new congestion charge
- Study: green cars to outsell gas guzzlers this year in the UK
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
James Bowe 10:14AM (2/28/2008)
Is that even a trend? 3 out of 5 is barely more than half. What's the criteria here. I have an '02 civic. The '08 model gets better mileage, so if I trade it in for a new model, am I buying a lower CO2 car? Mileage gets better over time on many models, so how much of this is cars gaining efficiency and how much of it is people actually making intelligent decisions???
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GoodCheer 3:43PM (2/28/2008)
James Bowe makes a good point.
On the other hand I suspect that there is a general trend that the first car you buy is pretty small, and subsequent car purchases would 'naturally' have a trend towards larger vehicles. If my theory is right, even if the CO2 per individual statistic were constant it would be significant, since new drivers will probably buy in at the low CO2 end of the vehicle spectrum.
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